"Loyalty is a fire. Left unchecked, it burns you alive."
The throne room stank of incense and blood.
Golden braziers lined the marbled hall, their flames fed by sacred oils and crushed myrrh. They crackled softly, like whispers of old ghosts. The banners of House Rhenhart hung still from the high vaulted ceilings — embroidered eagles stitched in thread that once shimmered like real gold.
Now they just looked… old.
Aldric Vyne stood at the centre of it all — tall, bloodied, unbowed.
His left shoulder was pierced by a blade not yet withdrawn. His mouth tasted of copper and ash. The echo of his boots — stained from the carnage in the corridors — still lingered, as if the throne room itself was uncertain whether he belonged there.
He did.
Gods damn them all, he built this kingdom.
And now they had summoned him like a dog.
No fanfare. No escort.
Just King Renhart, sitting on the edge of the Ironwood Throne like it belonged to him.
Not yet, Alaric thought grimly. But soon enough, once I'm gone.
"Lord Aldric," Rehhart spoke with mock courtesy.
His voice carried too well — too cold — through the cavernous chamber.
"Do you know what we do with blades that grow dull?"
Alaric's mouth curled, even as blood seeped through the front of his tunic.
"We sharpen them."
Rehhart stood. "No."
He drew a dagger from his belt — short, curved, ceremonial.
"We discard them."
There was no trial.
No sentence.
No declaration of treason.
Just the clean, elegant motion of a king who had already decided how history would remember this day.
Aldric fell to his knees.
A cough wracked his body — sharp, wet.
He tasted the floor.
His fingers, calloused and scarred from thirty years of service, dug into the gold-inlaid tiles.
Around him, the nobles watched.
Silent.
Still.
Not one moved.
Not one objected.
The tactician who shaped the kingdom.
The King's closest advisor.
The man who won the Northern Wars and crushed the Sea Raids.
— Now a spectacle to be erased.
He laughed.
Low at first, then bitter, shaking.
Rehhart frowned.
"Have you lost your mind?"
Aldric looked up, eyes burning.
"You think I didn't see this coming?
You think this is the end?"
"You're dying, old friend," Rehhart replied.
Aldric's grin widened.
"Death is nothing new. I wish for it to never devour you as it does me. OLD FRIEND"
A sharp cough stole the moment.
He swayed, slumped — and finally collapsed forward, cheek pressed to the cold marble.
The flames dimmed.
The throne room, once ablaze with light, seemed suddenly too quiet — like the gods themselves had turned away.
He awoke to warmth.
Not the dry sting of incense smoke or the heat of spilled blood.
No — this was sunlight.
Soft. Clean.
Scented with lavender and morning dew.
His eyes fluttered open.
He was in a bed.
A large one.
Drenched in gold-trimmed silk, surrounded by marble pillars and arched windows of polished glass.
Birdsong echoed faintly outside.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
His fingers were small.
Too small.
He sat up — and a lock of dark brown hair tumbled into his eyes.
A polished mirror hung on the far wall, framed in ironwood.
He rose, slowly, like someone waking from a dream too real.
He stepped closer.
And there — reflected in the glass — a boy stared back.
Fifty years younger.
Grey-eyed.
Noble.
Frail.
But in those eyes… there was fire.
He knew this face.
A face that had once been dismissed as insignificant — a quiet boy forever lurking in the shadows of his house.
A face belonging to someone who had been overlooked at every turn.
And now… he was this boy.
Caelum Lucien Von Wolfsbane
Third son of House wolfsbane, a minor barony on the edges of Terravoss.
Born with a frail body.
Undervalued by his elder brothers.
Ignored by his father.
And doomed, if left to the whims of history, to disappear into obscurity.
But history, Aldric thought as he gazed into the mirror, had a terrible memory.
And terrible memories could be rewritten.
Footsteps approached.
A servant's voice called from beyond the door:
"Young Lord Caelum! The doctor await you in the hall!"
Caelum turned from the mirror.
His voice was quiet.
Steady.
"Let Him in."
He walked toward the window, hands braced on the sill as he looked out across the mist-draped hills.
A new day.
A new life.
A second chance.
And this time, he would not kneel. But first let's take care of this frail body.